Why women should give men a break about opening lines on Tinder

A screenshot from Bumble,
a dating app created by Tinder cofounder Whitney
Wolfe.Bumble

A lot of people talk about opening lines on Tinder and other
dating apps. People debate the best ones and complain about
the gross or boring ones.

A constant complaint is that these lines are, by and
large, lame. And because of the historic traditions of courtship,
the blame for that lameness usually falls on men.

Now let’s get one thing straight:
Disgusting and aggressive opening lines on dating apps are
inexcusable. And they are, honestly, just one more reminder that
men can be pretty awful sometimes.

But beyond those cringeworthy
examples, there is still a general consensus that most men’s
opening lines are dull as dirt.

“Why is he just saying ‘hi’? What
is that? Boring.”

That’s true; the simplistic "hi"
opener is boring. But I’ve often wondered whether that was a
trait of men or just of humans in general.

Thanks to the dating app
Bumble, I now have a
completely anecdotal answer to that question.

Bumble was created by Tinder
cofounder Whitney Wolfe, and the app is similar to Tinder in many
ways. You are presented with a series of people whose profiles
you either swipe "yes" or "no" on. If you both say "yes," then
you're a match.

But here’s the catch: The only
person who can initiate a chat once you have matched is the
woman. The man just has to wait, and, after 24 hours, the match
expires (though there's a new "Hail Mary" feature that lets men
extend that time window occasionally).

Bumble launched eight months ago
andhas seen over 5 million
conversationsstarted
by women so far. That doesn’t mean all of them start out with
pizzazz. After using the app for a weekend, I got
fourteen openers from girls (full humble brag disclosure)
— and it turns out that pretty much all of them were
intensely bland.

Here they are, in the order
received:

Hi! How are you? :)

Heyyyy

Hey!

How’s your weekend going

Hey how are you?

Hey! How’s your weekend
going?

Here’s my number, so call me
maybe?

Hey :)

What an adorable pup? Is it
yours?

Morning

Hey

Hey there, any fun plans for
the week

Hey there!

Hey there

If you’re curious, the dog
comment is because one of my profile pictures has a picture of my
friend’s dog in it. (OK, it’s pretty cheap.) But only one of my
potential love interests even took that low-hanging fruit.

I think the moral of this story
is that opening lines are hard. When you have nothing to go on
but a nebulous attraction to someone, it’s difficult not to sound
lame. Should I summarily reject all of these women because they
couldn’t think of an incredibly witty one-liner off the top of
their heads? Of course not.

I would argue that we should all
collectively give each other a break. The contemporary dating
scene is hard enough without feeling like you have to be
Shakespeare.